In recent years, the number of personal video recorders (PVRs), such as set-top digital video recorders (DVRs) and media center PCs, in homes has increased considerably. Generally speaking, a conventional PVR is a device that records video without a videotape to a hard drive-based digital storage media. This makes the “timeshifting” feature (more traditionally done by a VCR) much more convenient, and also allows for other features such as pausing live TV, instant replay of interesting scenes, chasing playback where a recording can be viewed before has been completed, skipping advertising, and the like.
In conventional PVRS, recorded programs are typically accessed through a textual list. In some cases, recordings are identified by their names and descriptions. Additionally, recordings may also be identified by the title of the specific episode and the date of the airing. In some cases, these identifiers may be insufficient to signal to a user the contents of a particular recording. In other cases, the identifiers may take more time to read than it would take to recognize the program visually. In other words, conventional PVRs do not provide graphical clues as to the contents of recordings.